I Love My Phone

taking a moment to appreciate gen z and The Information Age

I love my iphone. It's an epiphone I’ve had a few times. I first had it on a bus in San Francisco, late at night, trying to get home from Haight-Ashbury, when I realized I could only get from point A to point B with iphone maps (better than google maps btw). It dawned on me the power I held in my hand- not only could I navigate anywhere, I could access infinity in my small, pink rectangle of blue light. I love it. I love listening to music and podcasts with it, in my matching headphones. Bluetooth will forever feel like magic to me. I love the safety of being able to reach my parents, or god forbid an ambulance, at a moment's notice. I love that all my curiosity can be explored, and possibly answered, in a Google search. I love being connected to the world.

This is quite contrary to the “It really was that damn phone” realization that much of my generation, myself included, is currently having. Both exist at once, but let's elaborate on why it really was that damn phone. What I think people are really saying is “spending hours a day surfing entertainment on the internet really was damaging my life experiences and frying my dopamine receptors and making everything outside that glowing screen very dull!” but that's too many words. It was tiktok, instagram and comparing ourselves to a facade 24/7 that was making us so depressed, and we did all that through our little phones. A conclusion was then made that the phone itself was evil and we started hating it. I think this is a mix up of correlation and causation.

The phone did not do anything to you: you abused short form content.

For the past few years my screen time goal has been three hours. I’ve been pretty consistent in this, but it's not about the amount of time I spend on my phone, but what I do in that time. I text, I read, I listen to amazing podcasts (I fucking love podcasts), I find new music, I call people for shits and giggles, I find my way to new places, I look up things, I use my phone as the tool it was designed to be. Furthermore, when I want to be entertained I try to transition to a bigger screen, youtube on my computer, movies on my tv, ect., but that's a privilege in and of itself.

Smartphones are the most incredible, magical, helpful human invention ever. I do not want a world where I cannot call my grandma whenever I please, or look up new restaurants in my area, or get fashion inspo, or find out major socio-politcal-economic news (ugh), or find out juicy pop culture news, or be notified when a hurricane is near by, or facetime my sister, fall in love with a musician (my own boyfriend included), or find my way back home, or any of the infinitely beneficial things one can do on a smartphone.

This bleeds into a bigger idea- loving the present. I used to be (still kinda am) someone who has a deep nostalgia for the past, even the past which I did not live, like the renaissance of the 1950s-1970s, or for pre industrial revolution times that old authors write about. Yes, the past is lovely and inspiring, but it is gone to us. Did the people living through the 1960s all realize how awesome their time period was? No! I bet you a lot of people took the good things for granted and tunnel visioned on the Vietnam war, and so on. Just like we are doing right now, by calling our culture corrupt and hopeless and our politics doomed. We don’t realize how good things are right now, how much can be gained from the present, how much we can learn and how much we can change. I was at a playwriting workshop last night and the teacher talked about the concept of all time existing at once. I know, way too psychedelic for right now, but the biggest point she made was: Tap into the present. This is where we are! These are our times! We’re living right now, in The Information Age. We’re made of stardust, our portion of time is invaluable and will only be experienced by the people alive right now, us. So enjoy it! Take advantage of it. Stop looking at dumb, depressing shit and make some use of your phone.

The reason it feels so addictive and devastating is being you are serving the smartphone, make the smartphone serve you!

I love my phone, and I love you, Substack. I hope this helps.

Dvs